In the first sentence of this masterpiece of the German Romantic movement the youthful narrator rubs the sleep out of his eyes, listens to the twittering of the starlings and the murmurings of his father’s mill and sits on the doorstep to bask in the warm spring sunshine, only to hear his father’s outraged admonition "You Good-for-nothing! There you sit sunning yourself, and stretching yourself till your bones crack, leaving me to do all the work alone. I can keep you here no longer! Off (…)
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"From the Life of a Good-for-nothing (Taugenichts)" — a Romantic classic by Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff (1826)
17 May 2021, by Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff -
"Nineteen Eighty-Four" by George Orwell (1949)
13 May 2021, by George OrwellOne of the most famous novels of its time and certainly the best-known and most widely-read science-fiction novel of all time, Nineteen Eighty-Four is an extrapolation some forty years into the future of the Stalinist regime in the Soviet Union — that had just been extended to a significant part of Europe — to England and most of the rest of the world.
Written in 1948, Orwell cleverly reversed the last two digits of that year to provide a connection to his own time while leaving a credible (…) -
"Animal Farm" by George Orwell (1945)
11 May 2021, by George OrwellThis brilliant parable describes in simple, clear and convincing terms the revolt of the animals in an English farm that at first succeeds in establishing an egalitarian society, only to evolve relentlessly into a system of oppression under the leadership of a small group of intelligent, well-organised and very articulate manipulators, the pigs.
This parable of the rise and fall of revolutionary dreams is told in such a straight-forward, linear manner that it has achieved richly-deserved (…) -
"Homage to Catalonia" (1938) by George Orwell
10 May 2021, by George OrwellGeorge Orwell, a convinced left-wing socialist, went to Barcelona in December 1936 to join the forces in Catalonia fighting against the military uprising led by the General Franco. He joined the extreme-left party P.O.U.M. there and spent six months on duty in their section of the front line before being seriously wounded.
He was present in Barcelona when there was severe internecine fighting between the Communist-led government forces and Anarchist and P.O.U.M. militiamen that ended with (…) -
"Martin Eden" (1909) by Jack London
10 May 2021, by Jack LondonThis is about a rough, uneducated, young 20-year-old sailor and ex-gang-leader with a lot of drive and years of sailing all over the high seas behind him getting introduced to high society after having rescued the son of a wealthy family from a street brawl.
He rapidly develops strong ideas about love (of the wonderfully captivating daughter of the house), society (the shallowness of the world-outlook of the finally quite despicable bourgeois class), education (which he decides to catch up (…) -
"Down and Out in Paris and London" (1933) by George Orwell
6 May 2021, by George OrwellGeorge Orwell (1903-1950) was a passionate defender all his life of the underdogs in the society of his time, and in spite of his background as a member of the upper middle class — he was well educated and spoke with a “posh” accent — spent several years in his late twenties working as a dishwasher in Paris restaurants and hotels and also just tramping about England for months on end without a penny in his pocket, observing and experiencing for himself the ways and the language and the (…)
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"The Five Sisters of York" and "The Baron of Grogzwig" — tales by Charles Dickens from his novel "Nicolas Nickleby"
22 April 2021, by Charles DickensThese charming stories quite imbued with the author’s sensitivity and sense of humour are narrated by travellers in Dickens’s early novel "Nicolas Nickleby" (1939) — written when he was only 27 years old — and well deserve to be read and enjoyed on their own by all admirers of the great master of English prose in all its forms.
1. THE FIVE SISTERS OF YORK How the splendid Five Sisters stained-glass window of York Cathedral embodied the memory and life work of five gay young sisters a long (…) -
ALL 15 NOVELS OF CHARLES DICKENS: SYNOPSES, COMMENTS AND RATINGS
1 April 2021, by RayCharles Dickens (1812-1870) achieved practically overnight world-wide fame at the age of 25 with his phenomenally successful Pickwick Papers, and went on to write many other memorable novels (Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, The Old Curiosity Shop, David Copperfield, Little Dorrit, Great Expectations, Our Mutual Friend...) and tales (A Christmas Carol) that established him as one of the foremost authors in the history of English-language literature.
Charles Dickens at the age of 30 INDEX (…) -
"The Pickwick Papers" (1837) by Charles Dickens
28 March 2021, by Charles DickensDickens’s first and funniest novel, published when he was only 25, was a huge worldwide hit that had people lining up on the wharfs in Sydney and New York when the boats came in with the latest instalment.
With a hundred English and American editions before 1900, it was probably the best-selling novel of the whole 19th Century, worldwide.
A comical English version of the Don Quixote/Sancho Panza theme, with an utterly likeable but impractical nouveau riche would-be gentleman from London (…) -
"Oliver Twist" (1838), by Charles Dickens
21 March 2021, by Charles DickensThis was the second consecutive worldwide success for Dickens at the age of 26(!), and it was a shock to his vast public, who were looking for another Cockney comedy in the vein of The Pickwick Papers, but got instead a hard-hitting description of some of the most shocking aspects of the social conditions of the world’s most advanced country at the time: criminal child neglect in orphanages, inhuman conditions in public work houses, crime and prostitution ...
This is sock-it-to-’em fiction (…)